


Hyperborean Infamy

by littlemisslol



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Despicable Me/Rotg mashup, Don't Judge Me, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, cause goddamn I love my mashups, plot of one movie with the characters from another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemisslol/pseuds/littlemisslol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicolas Saint North is one of the most famous villains of his age, but to complete his greatest heist ever, the stealing of the Moon, North must learn to handle one orphan Jack Frost in order to pull it off. It's a tough job being evil, but an even tougher one learning to be a dad. ROTG/Despicable Me mashup. Don't judge me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. COFFEE AND COOKIES AND MOONS

**HYPERBOREAN INFAMY**

**A ROTG-DESPICABLE ME MASHUP BECAUSE GODDAMN I LOVE CROSSOVERS.**

**CHAPTER ONE: COFFEE AND COOKIES AND MOONS**

It was a bright, happy day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, people were generally frolicking, and Nicolas Saint North was ready to chop someone’s head off. Really, there was only so much frolicking a guy could watch before he gets irritated. The main street of the town he called home was abuzz with life, people crawling from the woodworking like cockroaches. With an irritated sigh the brown haired man forces his way through the crowds of city folk that stood between him and the sweet, delicious coffee that he needed to function.

Main Street was a quaint strip of two story buildings, without a single chain brand in sight. The town of Santoff Claussen prided itself on maintaining it’s individuality, apparently, but North really couldn’t give a damn. The man, who was pushing his thirties, was already a bitter old man at heart, and that was just the way he liked it.

Eventually he manages to get to the coffee shop, which is good. To his irritation he notes the line of at least eight people already there, which is bad. However, North is nothing if not prepared. With a downright evil snicker and a glint in his blue eyes, North reaches into his flowing red coat, a heirloom from his mother Russia, and pulls out a strange looking, silver gun. The machine whirrs to life at the push of a button, occasionally making a worrying clunking noise every once and a while. North is quick to aim the device at the other patrons of _Marie’s Coffee and Snacks_ , and pulls the trigger without any fanfare.

A burst of energy shoots from the gun, hitting the man in front of North quickly and wrapping around him. The smoke quickly clears, and the man is frozen solid, the ice still cracking as it settles.

“Freeze ray!” Comes North’s accented laugh, the Russian in his blood sounding through the air. The phrase is repeated seven more times as North repeats his performance, freezing everyone in line solid without a care. With a snicker North re-sheaths his freeze ray in his coat and strides up to the counter, where a shocked looking barista has frozen, pun intended, in fear, her perfectly manicured hand clutching a large coffee and a paper bag. North offers her his most charming smile as he plucks the bag and cup from her lax grasp, stopping only to drop a quarter into the tip jar as he leaves.

No one in the shop makes a sound, save for the tinkling of the bell as he slams the door behind him.

North’s drive home is uneventful, as per usual. The Russian motors through the streets with his beloved beast of a vehicle, one he built himself, barreling over anyone who gets in his way as he sips his coffee happily. The car is a looming monstrosity of metal and glass, easily dwarfing anything else on the road, painted red and lovingly buffed to a shine.

North calls it the Sleigh.

With the practice of a master, North deftly backs the Sleigh into his garage. His home is a scary looking house, which is exactly why he had it built the way it was, with the architecture imitating that of his Russian home, tall bubbled spires clawing towards the sky. The house is a dark mahogany, the windows shuttered and ominously glaring out onto the quiet suburban street from across it’s dead lawn. The white-picket-fence feel of the rest of the houses really helps to set North’s home as different, and the brown haired man wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gently swiping at his short, expertly trimmed brown beard to get rid of any excess coffee, North takes the front steps to the porch two at a time, itching to get back to his lab.

If you couldn’t tell by this point, Nicolas Saint North wasn’t exactly a run of the mill Joe.

No, North was a full fledged, evil-genius style villain, and damn proud of it.

The interior of the house is akin to the exterior, full of weapons and newspaper clippings, some from Russia and some from America. Maces and swords decorate the walls, and the corpses of rare animals were his furniture pieces. Medieval torture devices, a relic of when he had robbed a string of high-end museums just because he _could_ line a few of the emptier walls. The center point of the entire front room was a massive TV screen, at least the size of North’s wing span, meaning to say _frigging huge._ Across from that, set tastefully into a little nook was a couch made from what looked like a mixture between a komodo dragon and a lion. North wasn’t sure what animal it was, only that it was rare and he had shot it.

And that there was an elf curled up asleep on it.

North winced at the thought of waking up the vicious little creature, disregarding the fact that it barely reached his shin. The elf, North knows, has razor sharp teeth, super strength and speed, and an unsustainable blood lust. It had come from a burst of inspiration after watching a movie that had included a cuddly little alien who tried to find a family despite being built to slaughter everything.

The experiment, despite being a good idea on paper, had failed, and had resulted in the demonic thing that was currently taking up the best spot on the couch. Which North wanted to sit on. _Great_.

Wincing slightly, North stands on one foot, raising the other to softly nudge the sleeping elf to one side of the couch, relaxing only when the elf hissed slightly before going back into a deeper sleep.

Highly pleased with himself, North settles onto the couch, cracking open the paper bag from the shop and delighting in pulling a chocolate chip cookie from it. His favorite, how _ever_ did they guess?  Snickering himself, North takes the first bite, and chews happily, only to be rudely interrupted by the screeching of the doorbell ringing through the lofty house.

With a groan North stalks back to the door, leaving his cookie behind as he grabs a sword from the wall and glares through the peep hole, hefting the weight of the metal onto one shoulder. You never could be too careful, in villainy.

He’s disappointed, unfortunately, as there isn’t anyone worthy of a good death match on the other side of the door. A head of white hair and blue eyes peek back through the peep hole. A _kid_.

The boy can’t be older than ten, with disgusting wide and innocent blue eyes and a face that hasn’t quite lost all it’s baby fat. North watches as the boy rings the doorbell again, and again, and again, before he snaps.

“Vhat do you want!?” He shouts, half ready to open the door and chop the kid in half for wasting his time. The kid perks up at North’s voice, and he puts on a gross little smile. North can tell, by that smile alone, that this kid is trying to sell something.

“Uh, yeah, hi?” The boy says loudly, holding up a box of what looks to be cookies to the peephole, “I’m from Mr. Adlers’s Home for Orphaned Children? And I’m selling cookies so we can have a better future, or whatever. Want some?” The box does a little dance as the kid waves it around.

“Nyet.” North shouts.

“Aw, come on! It’s for a good cause?” The boy shouts, pouting.

“Nyet, I’m not even home.”

Blue eyes scrunch up in confusion. “But I’m talking to you right now?”

“Wrong, zis is automated recording.”

“Then how are you responding to everything I say?”

“ _Auto. Mated. Recording.”_

At that the child just glares right into the peephole and drops the cookie box back into a blue wagon that North had failed to notice before. “A simple no would’a sufficed.” The brat grumbles, jumping down the stairs and beginning to pull the wagon away. North’s just about to go back to his breakfast when he sees a sudden flash of white hair and blue hoodie rush back up the stairs, and a shoed foot kicks the door separating them. North can feel the door slam into his face as it rattles on it’s hinges, and he doesn’t have to look to know the shit eating grin that must be crossing the kid’s face.

By the time North’s done rubbing his abused nose and looks back through the peephole the boy’s gone, already walking down the street and out in the open where North couldn’t get a good shot at him. _Dammit_.

Grumbling about the idiocy of children North goes back to the couch, the siren call of his cookie calling him. However, when he gets back he’s met with an ominous scene. The bag, once holding chocolate chip goodness has been displaced, though that’s not what makes North’s gut sink.

_The elf is gone_.

North shudders slightly and goes to pick up the bag, movements slow and calculated.

Not slow enough, it seems, as the elf comes screaming out from nowhere and latches onto North’s arm with it’s hooked _teeth ow_. The brown haired man lets out a _very manly screech_ and flails his arm with agitation, trying to dislodge the little monster as it hisses and spits from it’s perch.

A ringing comes from the TV, and North is just barely able to get his twitching arms under control in time to turn with a small amount of decorum to the screen. Where the TV had once been off it had been switched on, and showed the face of a twenty-something, tanned, grey haired man, who sported a annoyed look that North knew was almost a permanent resident on the man’s face.

“Hello Bunny!” North says happily, trying to seem as collected as he can while having his arm gnawed by a demon-elf. “How goes eet in ze lab?”

“G’day North,” Bunnymund replies with a heavy Australian accent, “Th’lab’s fine, but we got a bit of a problem.”

“Vhat? Vhat is problem?” North asks with confusion.

“Apparently someone stole th’ pyramids while we weren’t lookin’.” Bunny says with a growl. “They’re callin’ it the _crime a the century!_ We’ve been upstaged!”

North gasps, outright offended that he’s been knocked from his perch of _best thief in the world_ so easily, and holds up a hand to Bunnymund, stopping what was surely going to become a long winded rant. “I vill be right down.” He says, flicking the TV off with determination and striding over to a chair that had been carved from the body of one of the final white rhinos to ever exist. With a flick of his wrist North reveals a secret panel that had been built into the arm of the chair and hits a single red button. The elf lets out a squeal and lets go, running as the ground begins to shake.

His home begins to change around him, floorboards and decorations shifting and moving to reveal an elevator that would be invisible to the naked eye. The seat of his chair shifts, rolling quickly towards the elevator, which descends as soon as North is in place. The ride down is quick, the elevator descending almost eight stories in half a minute. It hits the ground with a sharp _thunk_ , and North steps out with a purpose.

His teammates are all in a flurry, and North takes a second to watch them panic. Bunnymund, as expected, is ranting, his Australian accent cutting through the air almost as much as North’s Russian one would. The other two occupants of the room, though quieter, are no less attention-drawing. Toothiana, a woman of Indian descent and around twenty years of age, zips though the air with nothing but a pair of electronic wings holding her aloft in a flurry of colours from their membranes and her clothes both. She speaks in a frenzied way, much like her flight pattern, never staying on one topic, or in once place, for very long.

Their other teammate, a man dressed all in yellow, is calmer than everyone in the room. He watches with a placated expression, contented to let his team do the freaking out for him. Sanderson, or Sandy, was hard to excite, and was the most grounded, which was good considering the need for a stable hand when working with nuclear explosives as Sandy was prone to do.

“Ah, my friends!” North calls. Tooth skids to a mid-air stop, turning to North and asking questions at a mild a minute.

“Who stole the pyramids? What do they want? _How did they pull that off? How are we going to top this? What do we do what do we do what do we do-”_

“TOOTH!” Aster shouts, “Let th’ man talk!”

She has the knowledge to look sheepish. “Sorry. I’m just surprised.”

“Ve all are.” North says, nodding. “But pyramids may be good heist, but what I have planned is _better_.”

Even Sandy perks up at that. North had been keeping this plan on the down-low lately, waiting for the right time to reveal it. If this wasn’t the right time, then North didn’t know what was.

“We may have had a simple year,” North continues, glad that his team is giving him their undivided attention. He didn’t want to have to go over this again, even as he continued, “And I know that we haven’t been extremely busy, but I have plans for the _biggest_ heist that anyone has ever seen, heard, or thought of! It is something so grand, so _amazing_ zat nothing vill ever top it!”

Their excited faces were great, especially as North paused for dramatic effect to make it all the more suspenseful.

“Ve.” He says quietly, letting his voice build, “Are going to steal...THE MOON!”

All three of his companions let out a suitably dramatic gasp at that, the possibilities running thorough their minds at a mile a minute. North allows himself to bask in their awe. _This_ was why he was the leader, the idea man, because he had the _best_ ideas.

“Once we have ze Moon,” He continues once the murmuring calmed down, “We can ask for _any_ ransom, and it will be payed, and we vill go down in history as the grandest thieves in _the world_!”

Tooth lets out a cheer, already blabbering at Sandy all the things they should ask for, throwing herself 100% into the plan. Sandy mirrors her excitement, mutely signing what he thinks they should do to _get a hold_ of the Moon in the first place.

Bunnymund is the only one who doesn’t seen excited as he pulls North close by his brown beard.

“Ah’ve been crunching our budget,” The grey haired Australian says quietly, “And the thing is, we have no budget. Ahm not a miracle worker, North, it can’t be done on our savings.”

“Bah, is fine.” North laughs, “I vill just get another loan from ze bank, zey love me over zhere!”

Bunny doesn’t look convinced, but shrugs all the same, trusting his leader and heading off to corral the other two before they got out of hand. North laughs nervously, hoping that his scheme will work. The entire operation was hinging on that funding.

It was just a matter of getting it.

***

It was raining when Jack Frost finally finished his section of the city for cookie sales, and the boy was shivering profusely as he walked through the darkened city streets. Pulling his hood higher over his head the nine year old boy curled in on himself rushing the final few steps towards the place he called home, dragging his blue wagon behind him.

Mr. Abbot’s Home for Orphaned Children wasn’t an inherently scary looking place. In fact, when Jack had first been dropped off it had looked rather nice from the outside, the building painted with murals of rainbows and flowers and children playing. The inside, however, left much to be desired, not to mention the demon of a man that ran the place.

Jack did his best to shake off the worst of the rain that he’d been soaked with, Adler so _hated_ dirty floors, and walked up to the front desk, where a stocky, angry looking man sat typing away at his computer. A line of yellow caution tape drew a very solid line in front of the desk, and Jack was sure not to cross it in the slightest. He kept his blue eyes on trained on the ground, silently waiting for Adler to be finished with his typing before saying anything.

“Hello again, Jack.” Adler finally says in a slightly dangerous voice. Jack flinches under the man’s beady glare, the eyes two pin holes in flabby canvas, as Adler continues. “And how did we do about meeting our quota?”

Jack gulps, and pulls a thin clip board from his pocket, listing the sales as quickly as possible.

“Well, I’ve sold eighteen boxes of Mini-Mints, twenty boxes of Vanilla Swirls, forty boxes of Coconutties, and ten boxes of Chocolate Fudgies...” He trails off, feeling the glare intensify.

“See,” Adler hisses, standing from his desk. Jack curls into himself slightly, already anticipating what happens next. “You say that like it’s a good thing. But we know that your... oh, what was it that you do?”

“Skating, uh, sir.” Jack says, choking up slightly as he shakes in his worn hoodie.

“Ah, right, your _skating_ costs quite a pretty penny. You know that, right Jack?”

“Yessir.”

“And you love it so, and it would just break my _heart_ to take you away from it because you hadn’t met your quota. Not to mention the time you’d have to spend in the box of shame, right?”

Jack outwardly shudders at the mention of the box, which was actually the hall closet. Jack had spent enough time locked away, alone, in the dark to _never_ want to go back.

“Yessir.” Is all he’s able to choke out past the lump in his throat.

“Good boy. You still have tomorrow, I suppose. Now go on, go clean something.”

Jack nods, still staring at the garishly tiled floor through tear blurred eyes.

“Yessir.”


	2. Loans and Laboratories and Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which North visits a bank, shrink rays are stolen and re-stolen, and North gets an awful, terrible, no good very bad idea.

**CHAPTER TWO: LOANS AND LABORATORIES AND IDEAS**

The Bank of Evil was a terrifying place. Be it the lofty ceilings, the red and black decor, or the general atmosphere of the place, the Bank of Evil gave of a wave of animosity and intimidation to whoever knocked on it's doors.

Today it just so happened that it was North who got caught knocking.

The Russian man did his best to stand tall, and he was quite tall if not a little pudgy around the middle, as he walked down the main entry, which was a massive room of marble and other stones, along with the smallest, classiest hint of gold. At the far end of the room stood a tall desk, at least twice the height of North himself. Atop it sat a woman with pinched features, her face set in a stone glare.

"Nicolas St. North," North manages not to stutter, thank god. "Here to see Ms. Onyx."

The woman nods and waves a hand to the left, where a few long benches of satin covered cushions serve as a waiting room. North quickly retreats, nearly dropping his blueprints and scale models in his flight to the safety of the waiting area.

He takes a seat, pointedly ignoring his surroundings as he plucks a blueprint that Bunny had drawn for him the night before, going over it for the millionth time. He continues his determined ignorance even as the only other person in the waiting area walks over to him from the other bench, which had been across from North's.

It's only once the mysterious man begins to read over North's shoulder that North acknowledges the annoyance, if only to pointedly shift away.

The man must not have gotten the message, as not only does he follow North, but he tries to start a conversation.

"So you're the great Bandit King, then?" The man asks in a slightly English accented voice, and North will admit the guy sounds like honey and wine.

"I am." North finally answers, shaking the blueprint to try and give off the vibe of wanting to be alone.

"I've heard of you, you know." The man continues, waving a black sleeved arm. Now that North thinks of it, the guy is dressed completely in black, and if one were to look closely they'd notice that his outfit was basically a dress.

"Zat's good." North says, trying to bomb the conversation.

"You're here for a loan, then? Because so am I. I'm Pitch Black, by the way, but I'm trying to get known as the Boogeyman. It's got a bit of a ring to it, doesn't it?"

North only grunts in what might be agreement, but also might be disagreement. Pitch doesn't seem to care, though, as he keeps blabbering on. Good gods, this guy was almost as bad as Tooth.

Salvation thankfully comes quickly in the form of North's name getting called for his meeting. The Russian practically jumps from his seat, gathering his supplies quickly and borderline running towards the stairs that leads away from  _Pitch Black_  and his incessant talking.

The meeting with Ms. Onyx is terrifying. Talking with the woman is like speaking with death, but even more dangerous. Onyx is thin and pointy with her features, even her hips seem like she could stab someone with them. North manages not to stutter through his presentation, and it comes across as a solid proposal. Onyx spends the entire thing nodding and taking notes in a little book, hardly ever looking up at North as he speaks, which is good as her purple eyes never fail to unnerve the poor man.

Finally, North is finished, and he sits quietly as the final blueprint is explained and shown in detail, waiting for questions.

"So then Mr.  _North_." Onyx finally says, after letting North stew in his silence. "I like the sound of this Moon excursion. The only thing I would like to see first is this  _shrink ray_  you so desperately need, as your plans, if I remember correctly, tend to fall apart when missing key elements such as that."

North can feel his stomach drop back down to the waiting room, and he laughs awkwardly. Unfeeling purple eyes fix him in a glare, and his forced laugher dies quickly as North rubs the back of his neck.

"About that," North drawls, trying to find a suitable lie and failing, "We don't have ze shrink ray yet, but we know where it is and how to get eet. Is a matter of picking it up."

Onyx's face darkens like a stormy sky, and North can feel himself physically flinch.

"You don't  _have it_?" Her tone is knives and poison. "And you  _dare_ to come and ask me for  _money_?"

"...Apparently." North bites at his lips with nerves.

Onyx responds with another glare. She tents long, perfectly manicured fingers together, and at this point North knows he's in for a whooping.

"I love the idea of stealing the Moon." She begins, and  _oh god_  she is pissed. "But there's one problem, I find.  _You_. You're getting old, North, and there are hundreds of younger villains that are younger than you,  _hungrier_ than you,  _better_  than you. Your schemes haven't turned a profit in months. We can easily put our resources in someone else, and be much better off. Take that man out in the waiting room, Pitch Black? Look at him, the man just stole a pyramid for christssakes."

North feels his jaw drop. And his stomach. And maybe his entire IQ because  _seriously_ , that guy is the one who had upstaged him? Onyx takes no note, fixing him with another glare.

"Get the shrink ray, and then we'll talk."

North is glad just to escape with his head, honestly. He scuttles down the stairs at a breakneck pace, only pausing once in his escape.

Never before has North gotten so much joy at freezing someone's head, but seeing Pitch's greasy black hair poking out of an ice block as the rest of his face is trapped in an expression of shock made him want to sing.

There was a first time for everything, apparently.

***

The Shrink Ray had been developed in Asia, according to Bunnymund, in a secret laboratory in the middle of nowhere on an island that according to 99% of the population  _didn't exist_. North had relayed his excursion to the others, who were unsurprised at the outcome, and together North and Sandy had put together a plan to go steal them a shrink ray.

Much like his car, North's jet was a self made monster of a machine, also painted red as to fit with  _literally everything_  the man made. There was also the fact that about one percent of it was actually for flying, the other bits were nothing but missiles and lazars. North loved it nearly as much as he loved the Sleigh.

It was about noon when they pulled up to the lab, the  _secret_ part of the secret lab having been rather ruined. The government who had built the gun were testing it at the moment, it seemed, and thus it was right for the picking.

And who was North if not an opportunist?'

The moment they were hovering above the testing area's roof, Sandy descended atop a mechanical claw, armed with a lazar gun and his own personal brand of awesome. The mute was quick to run the lazar in a circle, cutting a hole for the claw to reach into the testing lab and pluck up the shrink ray with no issue at all, save for Sandy almost crushing himself with an ill-timed upward motion of the claw at one point.

North let out a triumphant laugh as Sandy and the Shrink Ray were pulled back into the cockpit, the ray being instantly deposited into a specially made holding chamber. Sandy took the time to high five North before they took off, quickly flying away from the lab before they could get shot down.

Their victory, however, was cut short, as North was the first to notice a sudden change in air pressure as a hole was cut into their hull.

"Ach!" He shouted as a perfect circle, exactly like the one Sandy had cut, was snipped from their metal, and a fancier claw with a black paint job delicately reached into their ship and grabbed the chamber the shrink ray was in. Sandy tried to grab it, only to be shaken off, and the two could only watch with dismay as their prize was ripped from them. The Russian, always one for preparedness, snapped a hand into his coat, pulled out a tiny tracking beacon, and lobbed it onto the disappearing ray, smiling slightly as it latches onto the gun with a small  _thunk_. North peered through the windshield of the ship and gasped as he saw a familiar face.

A second ship, black and smaller than theirs, hovered above North's, and the Russian could see into the cockpit to see none other than-

"PITCH BLACK?!" The enraged shout could be heard from miles around, but so could the maniacal laughter coming from the man in question. Pitch's ship deftly manoeuvres away from North's, careening across the sky with a graceful movement. North's ship clunkily follows, only just able to keep up as they try to run Pitch out of the sky.

North is regretting freezing Pitch's head at this exact moment.

Pitch is laughing, and though North can't hear it he can see Pitch's evil smirk, and it makes him all the more enraged.  _That little_ -

"Sandy! Fire  _everything_!" North orders, bringing up a screen of luminescent green, aiming the ship so that Pitch's machine is smack dab in the center of the crosshairs. Sandy lights up in glee as he pulls up his own throttle, intent on shooting Pitch from the sky. With only a bit of flourish Sandy slams his thumb down onto the trigger, sending over half a tonne of explosives careening through the sky.

North's smile is vicious as he waits for the impending explosion, but the grin falls quickly as Pitch's ship deftly dodges every single missile with ease, sending out bogeys to deflect the heat seekers, and manoeuvring past the timed explosives with graceful movements.

North's ready to tear his hair out.

But as he looks through the auto-aim scope at Pitch's ship, he can see the cockpit open with a hiss of pressurized air. North and Sandy look on in horror as Pitch hefts the weight of the shrink ray onto his hip and carelessly aims it towards them. The two villains get one shocked look at one another before they're blinded by a bright flash of green light. By the time their vision returns to them, their ship is already half the size it was originally, and steadily decreasing.

North and Sandy are forced to cling to each other as their ship stops shrinking at the size of a long-board, the two of them barely able to find enough surface area for both their feet. The ship putters along despite it's sudden change in mass, still flying though North's knowledge of physics are disputing the idea that it should be.

North's blue eyes glare at Pitch's retreating ship, the black machine disappearing into the distance without a single scratch. Sandy's face mirrors that of his leader's, dark and  _angry_. This had just gotten personal.

"Oh  _man_ ," North hisses, his foot almost slipping from the polished metal of the miniature ship, "I  _really_ hate that guy."

Sandy nods empathetically, settling in for a rather long ride home.

***

So. Operation Shrinking-Thievery was a big flop, unfortunately. But North was anything but deterred. The great Nicolas Saint North and his Minions didn't let a little thing like bone crushing  _failure_  get them down! If they did they'd never have gotten where they were now!

Thus, it was a matter of dropping Sandy at home and finding Pitch's lair. If North had to wager a guess he'd say it would be within the town, as Pitch had been visiting the local branch of the Bank of Evil, and thus had to be located nearby.

It was easier than North expected, but then again the looming fortress of shining black material was rather hard to miss, especially with the giant, eight meter wall and shark tank surrounding the entire compound.

With a sigh and a stroke of his beard, North peers through a pair of binoculars. The black fortress was state of the art, North could tell from the bush he was hiding in, and would be almost impenetrable. The key word, of course, being  _almost_. With a snicker North slides from his shrubbery/hiding place, and walks along the sidewalk that lined the outside of the wall, searching for any weaknesses. He finds none on his first pass, zero on his second, and absolutely nothing on the third. Eventually he grows desperate.

Pitch Black  _had_ been enjoying his time off, sitting around in his luxurious main room and being content to watch reruns of  _Extreme Makeover Home Edition_  for hours on end, when a large, klaxon style alarm had nearly stopped his heart. Grumbling, Pitch used his rather large universal remote for his lair to access the security feeds for the front gate.

The grumbles turned to laugher as he watches Nicolas St. North attempt to pole vault over the wall.  _Really_  where did the man come up with these ideas? If this was the best he could do, then Pitch was almost going to feel bad about what he was going to do next.

Almost.

With a full on evil chortle Pitch presses a button on his remote, reclining onto his plush sofa and watching with glee as North was literally catapulted off the wall by way of a secret panel in the wall itself.

North landed a fair distance away, groaning as he removed himself from the tree that had most certainly broke  _something_. New plan, then.

The next time North sneaks up to the wall it's with a small lazer, intending to cut through the key pad and mess with the wiring within, perhaps shorting the circuits to the main door. He is, instead, met with another panel of the wall flinging out and nearly crushing him, the re-enforced polymer smacking him soundly into the concrete.

New plan, then.

The third attempt ends in almost getting eaten by a shark.

The forth he winds up air born once again, landing in the same tree as before.

The fifth, and North just gives up, as he barely even gets close to the wall before a literal fuck-ton of missiles and bombs are aimed and fired directly at him. If not for a protective shield he had managed to put in place seconds before then, he would be part of the cater he was crawling from.

North let out a cough, only slightly worried as smoke bursts from his mouth as he does so. The man rubs his face and is hardly surprised when it comes back covered in soot and ash. With a dejected grumble North glares at the lair before him, not even bothering to move from the sprawled out position he'd found himself in, from within the crater.

It's while he's trying to burn down the house with his hate-stare, that he sees a slightly familiar face.

The little white haired boy who had been obnoxiously annoying yesterday walked down the sidewalk along the edge of the wall, still pulling a blue wagon loaded with cookies behind him. The kid looked kind of tired, North noticed,  _not that he cared_. Little brat could go jump off a cliff, for all he cared. Still, the Russian chuckled to himself as he watched the kid press on one of the buttons on the main control panel, apparently ringing the door bell.

"Good luck, brat." North murmured to himself, grinning with a sadistic kind of victory as the same types of explosives that North himself had been bombarded with were aimed at the little boy, who, to his credit, only flinched slightly and continued on the exact same spiel he had at North's lair the day before.

With one difference, that is.

"Wait, wait," North can hear Pitch hiss over the com, the speaker actually being very loud, "Do you have Chocolate Fudgies?"

The kid's face splits into a grin, and he even goes so far as to grab a box from his wagon and wave it in front of the camera. North feels his jaw drop as the double doors to not only the gate open, but to the main fortress as well.  _It was that friggin' easy_? North watches in shock as the kid waltzes right in like he owns the place, some kind of anger-rage building.

The anger, however, is extinguished in seconds as an idea crawls into his mind, one that was sure to work.

" _Light. Bulb._ " North grins maliciously to himself, already feeling the shrink ray in his hands as he pulls out a cell phone from his coat and dialing the number he knows to be Bunny's.

"Bunny, I vill be needed a dozen cookie robots. Da,  _cookie_ \- no cooki- NO Bunny, I said cook. Ee. I- Oh forget it."

He snaps the phone shut with a roll of his blue eyes. The Australian would get the picture, North's sure. The brown haired man watches as the little kid walks back out of the citadel, the child writing furiously onto a small clip board with a smile.

Oh. Yes, North thought with a toothy grin.  _This_  was a plan that could work.


	3. Adoptions and Adventures and Robots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes meet, it's awkward, and there are shenanigans.

**C** **HAPTER THREE: ADOPTIONS, ADVENTURES, AND ROBOTS**

" _So_ then Mr...  _North_. Your credentials all seem to be in order."

North sat awkwardly on a small plastic chair that was obviously meant for children, smiling forcedly at the fat man in front of him. Mr. Adler looked at North with an unimpressed face, before going back to his computer.

"It says here you were awarded a Knighthood, a Purple Heart, and a Nobel Prize in Literature. And you work as a _dentist._ "

"Da." North smiles, inwardly cursing Bunny. When he had said  _make a believable back story_  he  _meant it_. "I was quite accomplished before I settled down with my beloved wife... Debbie. Her death has left such a hole in my heart... a hole that can only be filled with a child of my very own, you see."

Adler still looked unimpressed, but rolled his piggy-eyes nonetheless. "I  _see_."

North nods enthusiastically, trying his best to remember everything he'd gone through to make the story believable.  _Do it for the shrink ray_ , he told himself, the mantra running through his head over and over again.

"Well I can't see any reason why we shouldn't let you take Jackson home. For a trial run, at least. He's a difficult boy, you see, we've yet to find a home that will keep him."

North can't help but feel his gut sink.  _Of course_  he gets the problem child,  _of course_. He can't help but feel a little bad for the kid, at least because of the tone that was used by Adler.

"Yes, well." North says, scrambling. "I love a challenge."

Adler only smirks at that, looking North dead in the eyes. "That's what they all say." However, the man still raises a pudgy finger and presses down on a button on the intercom, staring at North the whole time with a pitying expression.

"Can you send Jackson down?  _Yes_ again. Thank you."

North can hear an excited squeal from the second floor above him, and the thumping of feet through the entire house. The footsteps center around one part of the house for a few minutes before suddenly rampaging through the house again, growing louder as the boy, apparently called Jackson, rushed down the stairs at a breakneck pace. As the boy rounds the corner on the stairs North gets his first good look at the kid, and it makes him smirk all the more.

Jack is small, even for a kid, thin and short, with stark white hair that apparently was natural, and bright blue eyes. He basically swims in the blue hoodie that he wears, and North knows that if he were a weaker man then he would probably find the child cute.

It's a good thing that North is not a weaker man.

Jack skids to a stop just before the yellow tape on the ground, a little, ratty, blue suitcase clutched in both hands. The kid's practically vibrating, fidgeting with excitement. The look on the boy's face drops, however, when he gets a look at North's rather intimidating figure.

"Jack." Adler speaks from behind North. "This is Mr. North. He's going to adopt you."

Jack's eyes flick from North to Adler, and back to North again, looking more and more apprehensive as the seconds tick by. Finally he settles for setting his suitcase down and getting one more good look at North before smiling nervously.

"Uh. Hi, then." He says with an awkward look, "I'm, uh, Jack." North does his best to smile down at the boy, but it must come out as more of a grimace than anything because Jack almost takes a step back with slight fear at the sight of it.

North simply nods, letting the smile drop, and introduces himself with, "I am North," before nodding to Adler and waltzing towards the door, leaving Jack to follow. The boy takes a step forwards before getting grabbed by the arm and getting pulled towards Adler, who had leaned over the desk. North ignores the hissed  _don't you dare screw this one up_  from the adult, and the whimper of the child, as he walks out the door and goes to prepare the car.

It's seconds later that Jack wobbles out the door, his slight weight put off by the suitcase in his hands. He gingerly hops down the stairs after North, bouncing slightly with excitement.

The car ride home is awkward, with Jack not knowing what to say and North not wanting conversation. Thankfully it's brief, the orphanage only a ten minute drive from North's own lair. The Russian strides into his home without looking back, not even as he hears Jack struggle slightly with the suitcase once again.

Jack looks at the house with apprehension, rightly nervous when presented with such a place, before suddenly gasping in realization.

"You're the guy who pretended to be an automated recording!"

"Nyet." North glares back. "Zat was another house."

Jack fixes him with a knowing glare, even as the child hobbles his way up the front steps and follows North into the house proper. He shows even more worry at seeing the inside of the house than he did the outside, staring with open fear at all the dangerous weapons littering the walls. North takes glee in the fact that the kid openly flinches as the door slams behind him, curling into himself slightly as if trying to hide in that blue hoodie.

North continues into the house without a care, listening to the squeak of old running shoes on his floors. He only stops when Jack almost touches a device that was sure to take his hand off, shouting at the child to  _not touch that_. Jack's hand instantly shoots away, curling into a surprised fist as he stares at the device with fear. North takes it upon himself to guide the brat to the kitchen, where a single sandwich sat unassuming on the table.

"Is time for ground rules." North states as he forcibly picks Jack up by the arms and plops the boy into the breakfast nook, tossing the sandwich at the nine year old before continuing.

"Zere will be no  _crying_ , or laugher, or giggling, or running or the touching of things. You vill  _not_  bug me vhile I'm working."

Jack, his mouth full of sandwich, makes to protest but North continues without pause.

"No annoying noises, or jokes, or getting sick."

Jack's face drops with each rule, but North can't find it within himself to give a damn as he finishes with  _are ve clear_?

Jack fixes him with big, doe eyes and nods, eating his sandwich quietly.

"Good." North claps his hands. "I vill be back in six hours.  _Stay. Here._ "

And with that, he's gone, leaving Jack alone.

Jack blinked his wide blue eyes as he looked around the silent kitchen, staring openly at the large amounts of scary looking torture devices, dead animals, and weapons that cover the house. He can't help but doubt that North's a dentist.

"Okay, Jack." He whispers to himself. "You... you can make this one work. You're going to be really happy here!"

The silent house is all the answer he gets.

Sandwich finished, Jack takes it upon himself to explore the place that supposedly is his home from now on. He can't help but feel out of place as he wanders back into the main room. However, once he spots something familiar he at least begins to feel at bit more at ease.

"TV!" He sighs thankfully, glad for one shred of normalcy in the craziness his life had apparently spiralled into without his consent. Glancing around for the remote he spots it at the top of a bookshelf, easily accessible to a tall man such as North, but not so much to a nine year old. Clambering up onto a chair made from a rhino's carcass, Jack struggles to reach the remote, putting a foot onto the armrest as he does so. A small beeping is all the warning he gets as the floor suddenly begins to shift, the chair moving under him and dragging the boy along for the ride.

Jack shrieks as his seat shifts to the center of the room and is suddenly within an elevator, only getting more and more nervous as the elevator descends, the living room disappearing as he sinks into the ground.

"This guy is  _so_  not a dentist _,_ " Jack murmurs as the elevator comes to a shuddering halt thirty seconds later. Blue eyes widen in wonder as Jack looks into the lab beyond, a collection of inventions and prototypes all tossed together into the massive chamber. Electricity flows freely through some inventions, and concoctions of differently coloured liquids cover tables. Jack takes a few stuttering steps forwards, a little unsure of where it was that he'd found himself, but continues on as he hears a newly familiar voice from three floors down. A peek over a winding pathway of metal gives Jack a view to the bottom floor, where the brown haired Russian man was arguing with a grey haired twenty-something, their accented voices bouncing off the walls.

"Nyet, I said  _cookie_  robots, not boogie robots!" North rubs his face with a hand, trying to ignore the small, dancing robots on the table before him. Bunny has the gall to look offended.

"Well if ya weren't so damn confusin' over the phone we wouldn't be in this problem, now would we, mate?"

If looks could kill, Bunnymund would be  _dead_. Tooth flutters close and inspects the tiny bots, smiling and cooing at them. "I think they're  _cute_!" She grins, haphazardly copying their movements in the air. North has both hands on his face now, and screams into the palms of his hands. This is his life.

Just when he thinks things can't get any worse, spoilers, it does.

Because a flash of white hair goes wandering past the table the four adults were situated around, and North can hear a small voice humming.  _Ah shit, the kid_.

"What's this?" Jack asks loudly, standing on his tiptoes to paw at a beaker of luminescent blue liquid. "Can I drink it?"

"Do ya wanna  _explode_?" Comes Bunnymund's less than helpful answer, the younger man looking on in shock as a  _kid_  wanders around their secret lab. The kid just glares at Bunny, who turns to North with a questioning expression. " _North_?" Bunnymund chokes out in shock, "Who's this?"

North pointedly ignores the question and instead stalks up to Jack, grabbing the kid by the back of his oversized blue hoodie. "I told you to stay in ze kitchen!" He hisses, dragging the child backwards.

"I got bored!" Jack defends himself, squirming in North's grip, his shoes skidding along the metal floors of the lab.

With a grunt North tosses Jack at an unsuspecting Tooth, the woman only just grabbing a hold of the boy before he can go crashing to the ground. "Toothie, Sandy, watch ze brat for me, please?"

Tooth nods, already hugging Jack to her, the child squirming in her grip as she and Sandy left the lab, heading back upstairs. Bunny's glare has increased tenfold, and North succeeds in ignoring it for a good half a minute before cracking.

"Boy is part of ze plot. Trust me."

Bunnymund's face scrunches up at that, but concedes with a muttered "I don't like it."

North just shrugs, and goes back to outlining what types of robots he actually wanted.

***

It's hours later when North finally emerges from the lab, victorious in having created robots that were the exact shape and size of standard cookies. Bunnymund had outdone himself, to which North is glad, but it had taken quite a long time. It was nearly ten at night when North manages to get back up to the house proper.

When he does, he rather wishes that he hadn't.

In retrospect, leaving Toothiana and Sanderson in charge of a hyper child wasn't exactly the best of plans, and North soundly regrets it as he walks into the front room, only to find it practically destroyed, with upturned furniture, ink splatters everywhere, and toilet paper having been thrown every which way until it covered most of the room. At the center of it all was Jack, jumping on the couch with Sandy as Tooth strung more toilet paper from the ceiling beams.

All three stopped dead when they saw North enter the room, Jack especially looking sheepishly at his feet as Tooth and Sandy just waved at their leader. North is so officially done with today, he has decided.

"Is time for bed." Is all he says, stalking forwards and scooping up Jack, who really was a lot smaller than North thought he was. Jack protests, trying to wiggle out of North's grip. Tooth and Sandy let out a moan of disappointment, but do nothing as Jack was carted out of the room, North only pausing to tell them to  _clean zis_  before continuing on his way.

Once he finds that he can't free himself, Jack goes limp, obviously tired even if he won't say so. North heads to one of the storage rooms, though it was more like a trophy room for his medieval weapons, and roughly drops Jack into a hollowed out bombshell that had been fitted to become a bed. Jack sits quietly for a second before fixing North with a glare.

"You're not going to be my dad." Is all the kid says, his tiny voice not really holding enough venom to make the statement as potent as it could be.

"I can live with zat." North replies, calmly patting the boy on the head with a patronizing tone.

North makes to leave the room, but just before closing the door he can't help but mess with the kid one more time.

"Good night, sleep tight, and do not let ze bed-bugs bite. Because there are  _thousands of them_. And there's probably something in your closet."

Jack's eyes go a little wide at that, and North can't help but laugh to himself when those baby blues flick towards the closet with a touch of fear.

As annoying as the kid was, North could deal with having him around for a few more days. He just had to hold out until tomorrow, then he would have his shrink ray, and Pitch Black would regret the day he pissed off Nicolas Saint North.

It was only a matter of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading/commenting/kudos-ing. Your support means a lot guys!


	4. SKATING AND STEALING AND COASTERS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack skates, North's a thief, and then they go to a coaster park. It's weird.

**CHAPTER FOUR: SKATING AND STEALING AND COASTERS**

Morning came with little fanfare, and with North joyously hopping down the front porch's stairs and down onto the dead front lawn. Today was the day that the shrink ray, and therefore the moon, would be his, and North could practically  _taste it_.

"Come on, Jack!" North calls into the doorway that he had left open, antsy to put his plan into motion. "Time's a-wasting! Ees time to deliver cookies!" Eventually he hears a sigh and the clunk of shoes against his hardwood, but Jack emerges dressed in a hat and gloves, with a pair of ratty skates tied around his neck.

"Vhat is this?" North asks, genuinely curious.

"Skating." Jack replies, knowing for a fact that this was written in his file, which apparently North didn't even read. "Every Wednesday."

"Ah, vell, we're going to have to skip ze skating today." North says, not sorry in the slightest.

"I'm not  _skeeping_  ze  _skating today_." Jack says, mocking North's accent. "There's a big show coming up, and I've got to practice my routine."

"Vell if you want to go, I'm not driving you. You'll have to walk."

The two glare at each other for a few seconds, locked in a battle of wills, before Jack grunts and stalks forwards, past North, and onto the sidewalk, heading steadily away from the house with a determined pout on his face. North stares at the brat in shock, kid had  _no_  respect for his elders, did he?

"Vhere are you going?!" He shouts, jogging after Jack.

"Walking to skating." Jack replies acidly, never breaking his stride.

"You are  _not_! I vill give you until count of three to get back here!  _Jack! Jackson_! Come back! One. Two-"

"And Three!" The skating instructor called from the stands, "And four! And-one-and-two-and-three-and-four!"

North glowers from the freezing metal bench he had found himself on, the cold leeching through his jacket and into his skin. Jack looks completely at home as he twirls and glides across the ice, and though it irritates North to admit it the boy looks graceful. The Russian grumbles, checking his watch for the fourth time in two minutes, tapping his foot as he waited for this hellish day to be  _over_  already. A few other people have gathered around to watch Jack, mostly mothers of the other children who were off at the snack bar, and they let out appropriate twitters of astonishment when Jack launches himself through the air, spinning in tight circles, and lands with perfection, gliding over to his teacher for a quick second. They chatter and North tenses slightly as Jack gestures to him. The instructor, an older gentleman with graying hair and wide, childlike eyes, looks at North appraisingly, but nods all the same and smiles at Jack, handing him something small before pushing him back out onto the ice.

Jack skids his way over to North, coming to a swift stop just before the edge, waving at North to come down from his spot halfway up the bleachers. North rolls his eyes but goes all the same, his boots making hard  _clunking_  noises as he does so. Jack smiles as he draws close, holding something out towards him.

North raises an eyebrow, but takes the small pink ticket from Jack, looking at it appraisingly. "Vhat is this?" He asks, looking for an answer.

"It's your ticket to the routines, including mine. I thought you might want to come." Jack shrugs but North can see the tenseness in his figure, the small amount of hope peeking through the apprehension. It makes North soften a little, so he nods.

"Da." He says, "Da I would love to come."

Jack's head snaps up from where it had been inspecting his skates, and the smile he wears is as bright as the moon in the night sky. North does his grimace-smile from before, and Jack waves slightly as he pushes back out onto the ice and away from North. The man himself goes to turn back to his original seat, but he stops in shock when he sees all the mothers cooing slightly, having been watching the entire exchange.

Bunch of blithering idiots.

***

It's almost  _noon_  by the time North is able to get out of the damn rink, manoeuvring the Sleigh into a somewhat hidden spot. Jack's mostly silent in the back, reading over the delivery schedule, and trying to figure out where they were, as the inside of the machine where he sat had no windows.

"Alright! Is time to deliver cookies. Our first customer is a man named  _Pitch_." North says the name with a bit of venom, but whatever. Jack looks puzzled, looking once down at his list.

"But he's a B, Pitch  _Black_." We start with the A's, then the B's, then-"

"Da, da, I know how alphabet works, but I thought we might shake it up a little." North shrugs, pushing Jack out the door to the Sleigh with no real care for how the boy nearly falls on his face on the way out. The brown haired man then drops the wagon, loaded with Bunnymund's fake cookies, out as well, before slamming the door closed. He watches through camera screens set up within the Sleigh as Jack rolls his eyes and stalks away, pulling his wagon behind him.

"Is almost over," North sighs happily, "Is almost over."

Jack, on the other hand, was struggling to pull the wagon, loaded with the ridiculous amount of  _food_  Pitch had ordered up the sweeping hill towards the front door after being let in a second time. The dark haired man was waiting, being generally creepy as he loomed from the shadows of his home. Jack offered him a smile, Pitch returned it with a devious looking smirk.

"Hello again," Pitch says clapping his hands together.

Jack just waves to him as he passes, disappearing into the citadel. The interior of the house is much like the exterior, tall and thin, sleek and simple in design. Jack is marched into a hidden door that leads to a modern kitchen, where he begins to unload his bounty.

"Alright, that's twenty eight boxes of Chocolate Fudgies, two boxes of Coconutties, and a box of Vanilla Swirls... hey, is there a reason why you're wearing a dress?"

Pitch looks affronted, but looks down at his long  _coat_  all the same. The dark haired man empties a box into a glass bowl before turning back to Jack.

"It's  _not_ a dress." He hisses, "It's a  _coat_."

"Where're ya going?"

" _Nowhere_."

"Then why do you need a coat?"

" _Because I do!"_

"... Okay... that'll be fifty four dollars."

Back in the Sleigh, North chuckles to himself as he flicks on a wide computer screen. The bright, flashing design on the screen reads  _Cookie-Bot OS_  as well as a loading bar that crawled it's way across. Once it hit it's destination, the screen opened into a video feed of what was going on from inside the glass bowl within Pitch's kitchen.

With a whirring and a couple clicks, twelve cookies spring to life, quickly darting out of the bowl and along the kitchen floors, all on tiny, spidery legs that make a skittering noise as they do so. Jack and Pitch were oblivious to their escape, Jack watching with boredom as Pitch meticulously counted money.

North grabbed a hold of a game controller in the Sleigh, using it to expertly guide the bots through the fortress and towards the blinking tracker that North had placed on the shrink ray as it had been stolen. Honestly knowing his hodge-podge workmanship on some things, North's rather thankful that it's still working.

The bots travel through the lofty halls of the fortress, quickly skittering down the halls and towards the blinking signal on the top left of North's screen. Finally the bots come to a stop in front of a massive vault door, stereotypical in nature and as black as the rest of the house. If not for the fact that the beacon was blinking behind it, North never would have noticed it.

With a quick stroke of the keys North sends a few of the robots scurrying up the wall and to the keypad that's hidden in the wall. Another command and Pitch's security system is down and the vault is open. Job half done, the Cookie Bots continue into the vault proper, and it makes North ready to squeal in joy to see the shrink ray, in all it's glory, standing proud in the center of the vault through the screen. The twelve robots are split into two groups of six, one of which scuttles towards the ray, and the other heads up and onto the wall. According to their scanners, which had made a virtual map for the bots to follow, that particular wall was one that boarded the outside.

With the whirring of lazars the robots on the walls begin to slice through the metal walls like butter, the red glow lighting the entire room. The robots move in a small circle, evenly cutting a hole into the wall.

The second group extends tiny claws, two each, and latch onto the shrink ray. With a final clang their exit is complete, the noise echoing through the room. The shrink ray is lifted and dragged from it's podium and along the floor, before being oddly manoeuvred and pushed out the newly made hole.

By the time the bots reach the outside of the wall North's there to meet them, lifting the shrink ray with a sense of awe, delight, and joy.

_He had it_.

The ray is still slightly rough, not quite a finished project, as wires stuck out of the edges and the cover was not of quality material. If anything, it struck North as something of a prototype, but it was a  _working_  prototype and that was good enough for him.

Jack's waiting at the car when North makes his way back, nearly skipping with glee. The Russian ushers the boy into the car once again and sets off quickly, wanting to get away before Pitch can realize his shrink ray had left the building.

The ride home is pretty quiet, Jack being tired from two hours of straight skating, and honestly North can't blame him. The brown haired man himself is too giddy to even attempt to start a conversation, and the fact that now he can send Jack  _away_  is a glowing beacon in his mind.

The silence is wonderful, but not permanent.

An almost girly screech nearly sends North jerking off of the road, with an added bonus of basically stopping his heart for a bit. With a glare that could kill a thousand men, North whips around to stare in the back seat, where Jack is basically pressed against the window and staring out in pure awe.

"It's  _Whoopie World!"_  The child says, eyes the size of saucers.

"And?" North replies, finally getting the Sleigh back under control.

"And it's only the  _best place EVER_!" Jack crows. "Can we go?"

"Nyet."

"Oh, come on, please?"

" _Nyet_."

"I'll never ask for anything again, please, please, pleaaaaaaaaase?" Jack's last please is drawn out and whiny, and North can feel the doe-y blue eyes boring through his skull. North almost says no again, until a sudden thought springs into his mind like a strike of lightning powered genius.

The image of putting Jack onto a rollercoaster and leaving is solid in North's head, and the idea is good enough. Better than tossing the brat off a cliff like he originally intended, anyways.

"Light. Bulb."

***

Whoopie World, in North's opinion, is kinda crappy. It's not  _run down_  per-ce, but it's definitely seen better days. Jack's dragging North into the theme park, the child's hand ridiculously small in North's massive paw, and the boy's nearly vibrating with how excited he seems to be. The Russian just nods along, content to let the boy have his spazz.

Jack rushes to the first ride he sees, a massive roller coaster  _of course_ , dragging North along like the Russian wasn't three times his size. North watches as Jack clambers up into the ride, giddy and hyper, even as the man tries to slowly inch towards the exit. He could taste it now, the freedom, no more of this damn kid nearly killing himself, no more of Jack almost eating something dangerous, no more whining...

Pure bliss.

North's dreams were shot down, unfortunately, by a pizza faced attendant.

"Dude, you gotta ride with your kid." The teenager drawls, "He's too short to go on his own."

_So close._

North just grunts, accepting that he's going to have to throw the child off a cliff anyways, and climbs into the rickety ride without a word. Jack's in the car in front of him, already bouncing as he waits for the car to start. When the machine starts up with a rather worrying clicking and whirring noise North settles in for a boring ride.

He's sorely disappointed.

The rollercoaster is absolutely  _terrifying_. Be it the shoddy construction feeling ready to give out at a feather's touch, the stomach dropping dips and curves of the ride itself, or just the nauseating smell of sugar that permeates the seat North's on, by the time the ride screeches to a juttering stop North's ready to vomit.

He very nearly does.

Jack squeals and yells through the entire ride, seemingly unaffected as he hops from the ride with no indication of illness whatsoever. In fact, as North manages to stumble out of the death machine from hell Jack's already bolting down the boardwalk, searching for his next ride. The child's laughter echoes around North, despite the fact that the boardwalk is packed with people. North's not worried, if Jack gets lost then North can just leave anyways.

The Russian eventually catches up with his brat, mostly because Jack had seen it fit to stop and stare at one of the games.

Or, to be more specific, a plush doll of a yeti that was a prize at one of the games.

"It's so fluffy..." Jack murmurs, mostly to himself, "I'm gunna die."

He turns to North with a gasp, grabbing onto the massive hand next to him and dragging North towards the game. "You  _have_  to let me play for it!" Jack shouts, eyes never leaving the yeti. Why the boy had fixated on the toy North has no idea, but really there's no harm in letting the kid play.

So he hands money over to the rather rude runner of the game, sits back, and watches Jack try to hit a spaceship from it's perch with an air powered softball gun. He's not exactly surprised when Jack fails, but he still somehow finds himself shelling another five bucks out for another shot at the game. He watches with more interest now, half wanting to see if Jack's even coming close. He actually is, but Jack's no marksman. Not like Tooth, North thinks absently.

A third try happens sometime within North's musing. However, even while distracted North easily sees one of Jack's shots connect with the spaceship, hitting it dead center and  _bouncing off,_ not knocking it over.

The game plays the  _fail_  music, and the attendee makes a show of rubbing it in Jack's face.

And North can't help but get mad.

"He hit it." North grumbles.

" _Maybe_ ," the attendant says saucily, "But is it knocked over? Why, I'd say no, no it isn't!"

This just puts North in a mad move.

"Alight." The Russian hisses, "My turn."

He slaps another five into the man's awaiting hand, and motions for Jack to move away. The boy, to his credit, has learned quickly to see when North is going to cause damage. Jack scurries out of the way as North steps away from the game, pulling a newer invention of Bunnymund's out of his coat.

The gun in his hand is black and solid, compact. North takes aim and pulls the trigger, releasing a mechanism inside of it. The barrel of the gun expands into six separate parts, tripling the size of the gun and crackling with electricity. The attendant, for all his sass, runs from the booth as North pulls the trigger once again, sending a massive pulse of electricity at the game, instantly shattering. Fragments are still raining from the sky as North stalks forwards and plucks the luckily surviving yeti doll from what remains of the booth and drops it into Jack's shocked arms.

The boy gazes at him in something akin to awe, and breaks out into a massive smile, his eyes sparkling with... my god was that  _admiration?_

"That was so COOL!" The boy gushes, squeezing the doll and grabbing North's hand. "Let's go blow up another game!"

North barely notices the soft smile crawling onto his face at Jack's excitement, but doesn't bother to wipe it away once he does.

 


	5. DONATIONS AND DECISIONS AND STORIES

**CHAPTER FIVE: DONATIONS AND DECISIONS AND STORIES**

It was late afternoon by the time North and Jack got home, bursting through the door with loud laughter coming from both. North's deep chuckle vibrated farther than Jack's high pitched giggles, but they worked together just as well. Both of their faces had some sort of paint on them, Jack's in the design of a snowflake and North's a reindeer. Both had cotton candy, and Jack was quite obviously hyped up on sugar.

North looks up into the hall and locks eyes with Bunnymund, who had apparently heard them come in. The Australian's arms are crossed, his foot tapping, and his usual glower is deepened. He's mad, though about what North can't think of.

"Alright my boy, go and play, I must speak vith Bunnymund." North shoos Jack away, sending the laughing child careening through the hallways on a sugar loaded rampage.

Bunny's eyes narrow as the boy runs past him, before glaring at North again. North smiles as he draws closer, holding out some cotton candy.

"I got ze shrink ray," North smiles. "Cotton candy?"

"We're running out of time." Bunny spits. " _Don't. Get. Distracted."_

North, finally getting the gravity of the situation nods, and sterns his painted face into a resolved look. "Get me Onyx." Is all he says in response.

Bunnymund quickly sets up the computer link as North gathers the shrink ray from the car and a few other things for his pitch. It seems like only a few minutes before North finds himself standing in front of his flat screen in the front room watching Onyx's face flicker into view, decidedly not happy.

"North." She says dangerously. "I hope you have good news for me."

"Aha, Miss Onyx!" North says respectfully, "Sorry to be disturbing you, but I have something you might like to see."

Her face falls to the smallest amount of shock as North hefts the shrink ray into view, which North hopes is a good sign.

"Now we may continue with ze plan, there will be no more hiccups." North says with just a hint of a brag.

"I. I see." Onyx says, "Well then, do continue with your  _plan_. I wish to hear it."

North nods along, bringing up a large easel with pictures outlining each stage of the plan.

"Stage one," North begins, "Ve build rocket. Stage two, we take rocket to ze moon. Stage three, I shrink ze moon. Stage four, I sit on ze toile-WHAT?"

High pitched laugher comes from the doorway, and North turns with a glare to see Jack muffling his giggles behind his sweater. The badly drawn picture of North on the loo is quickly knocked from it's perch, hidden from Onyx's steadily glaring view.

"Excuse me for one second." North hisses, already stalking towards Jack. The nine year old is quickly shuffled from the room, North strongly urging the boy to go somewhere else while he worked.

Jack looks unimpressed as the door slams in his face.

"Anyways, as I was saying, once ze moon is in my possession the world will pay a...ny...thin...g"

North trails off as he notices the door hanging open again. The Russian worriedly scanning the room for his brat. Muffled giggles come from down the hallways, which puts North even more so on edge.

"You don't seem very focused." Onyx mutters, inspecting pristine black nails. "Do you need to  _reschedule?_ "

"Nyet, nyet!" North shouts running for the side door, "I just need a quick-" The sentence is cut off by a startled noise as Jack re-enters the room, toting a  _very_ familiar gun.

"Freeze ray!" The kid laughs, holding it towards North with a smile. North shouts something incomprehensible that gets cut off as Jack accidentally hits the trigger and a blast of cold nails North right in the chest. The child gasps slightly, dropping the gun as North's torso and legs are encased in clear ice.

The Russian hobbles to the best of his ability back over to the TV, but Jack beats him to it.

The boy smiles, staring up at the screen.

"Whozzat?" He says, shoving his face into the camera. "She looks like a skeleton!"

Onyx growls, face a dangerous combination of anger and offense. North cringes at that face, but full on flinches as that glare is set on him, Onyx ignoring the child completely.

"I have already  _told you_ ," The woman snarls. Jack moves away from the screen at that voice, cowering out of view. "That I am  _sick of games, St. North._ Your plan is a good one, but there is still the matter that it is  _your_  plan. I will no longer allow my bank to associate myself with like likes of  _you_  and your band of idiots."

"But I-"

"If you  _ever_  try to come to my bank again, you will be leaving in a  _body bag_ , are we clear?"

"But-"

"I said  _are we clear_?"

"Crystal, ma'am."

"Good."

The screen goes black with terrifying finality.

North's heart almost shatters into a million pieces as he watches his dreams fall into a void just as dark as the television. Jack has made himself scarce, which was good seeing as North could not be held for his actions against the child at this moment. The little brat had just destroyed everything North had worked for the past seven years...

And the agony of it was ripping his soul in two.

***

North makes his way down into the lab in brooding silence, his mind working at a mile a minute. His slow, even steps are dogged by the patter of tiny feet and sneaker squeaks, but North pays them no attention. When the Russian hits the main lab area it's with a heavy heart. Tooth and Sandy are playing ping pong, Tooth three feet up in the air and Sandy duel wielding paddles. Bunnymund is off in the corner, welding  _something_  that North really doesn't want to know about.

When the larger man enters the room, the other three go silent. North's face must be less neutral than he had hoped to put on, because the others' faces fall the moment he walks into the room.

"I have... bad news." North begins. The words ring out through the room, no one even daring to breathe.

"I just got off ze phone with ze bank about our money... and we now have no money. Ze bank has stopped funding us. If it is a question of getting to ze moon... then we will not. We are, for lack of better term, doomed."

Tooth gasps, hands flying to her face. Sandy looks ready to either murder something or cry. Maybe both. Bunnymund scoffs, and no prizes for guessing who  _he_ blames.

North sees his own devastation mirrored on their faces, and it hurts.

"I would recommend you begin to look for outside employment... I know zat it is sudden but things did not go according to plan."

Yeah, Toothy's crying.

North feels a soft tug on his sleeve, and looks down to see Jack with a soft smile on his face.

"Vhat?" North mutters, "Can you not see I am in ze middle of a pep talk?" His accent is thicker with emotion, and his voice comes really close to breaking.

Jack shuffles his feet a bit before pulling a beat up plastic piggy bank from behind his back and holding it out to North. The man fixes Jack with a scrutinizing stare as he slowly takes the blue bank, expecting another prank.

As he slowly uncorks the rubber stopper in the bottom, however, he feels something akin to his heart melting as three dollars and some change fall out. Jack's smile remains small, shy and hopeful, and it makes North want to hug him. He can tell an apology when he sees one.

Tooth watches all of this with interest, before suddenly  _hem-hemming_  to get North's attention. When the brown haired man turns she holds out a rather large diamond and another set of jewels out. Sandy shuffles around and pulls out what looks to be  _a crown_  North doesn't even want to know.

"Da!" North shouts with glee, "We will fund ourselves! Who needs stupid bank, not us! Not ze Guardians!"

The others let out a hearty cheer at that as North takes off, already ordering for the car and some other things to be dismantled for parts. The others, Jack included, follow behind him, already grabbing at things which might be useful.

The Guardians, North thinks, might just pull this off yet.

***

Building the rocket is not a  _hard_  process per ce, it's not like North and Bunnymund haven't built anything less crazy, but it is a long process. Bunny estimates it will take a few weeks, and thus they'll be ready to launch on the 26th. The date is unfortunate, as North knows that Jack's routine is that day, but North will burn that bridge when he comes to it.

Everything goes mostly to plan, save for a hiccup with Jack washing his blue hoodie with North's white astronaut suit, turning the entire thing a feminine periwinkle. Somehow north can't find it in himself to be angry.

Despite Bunnymund's warnings, North begins to grow more and more attached to Jack, despite any saying to the contrary. North legitimately cannot help growing closer to the boy, and really, Jack's a good kid. He's smart, curious, and  _adorable_ , and his mischief reminds North of his own childhood back in mother Russia.

Bunnymund himself is not pleased. The Austrailian can see from a mile away that North, the big softie, was starting to like the brat. It was infuriating how North was spending less and less time helping him and the others in the lab, and instead the Russian was upstairs in the main house with Jack more times than none. Toothiana and Sanderson have loved the ankle biter since day one, so it's not like Bunny's going to get any form of backup from them, but by the second engine failure that North could have prevented  _had he been there_  Bunnymund was fed up.

Something had to be done, and fast.

***

"Miss Onyx, your brother is here to see you."

The automated voice of her secretary buzzes from Onyx's phone, startling her from her thoughtful pondering. She gracefully taps a button on the phone with a perfect nail, pushing it downwards with over exaggeration.

"Send him in." She says calmly, her voice stone cold.

The door clatters open to her left, and Pitch swaggers in like he already owns the world. God, why she put up with this idiot was beyond her.

"Hello sister dear," Pitch says, flopping onto one of the chairs in front of Onyx's desk, "You called?"

"I did, Kozmotis" The black haired woman responds.

"Woah, no, I'm  _Pitch_  now, Kozmotis was my nerd name."

"Whatever. So. How's that  _shrink ray_ of yours doing?"

"It's safe in my vault, where else would it be?"

"Oh, really, well then." The sharp faced woman grabs her laptop, flipping it open to show a screenshot of North, half frozen, and Jack, who was pushing his face up into the screen. In the background the shrink ray was easily seen. "I suppose North must have one  _exactly like it!"_

Pitch looks offended, then shocked, then back to offended, before finally settling on rage.

"That boy sold me cookies!" He yells in outrage, pointing at the screen, and by extension, Jack.

"You  _idiot_!" Onyx screeches, "Do you know how lucrative this moon thing could be? I handed you the world on a silver ruddy platter and you still  _fuck it up_."

"No." Pitch's reply is as deadly in tone has his sister's had been, "Not yet. There's still time."

"There  _better be_."

***

Late in the evening, three days before the moon heist, and North's attention is not where it should be. Jack giggles as he runs around his room, bouncing off the walls, screaming his little head off. North tries to corral the nine year old, but Jack rushes around in a blur of white and blue that it just too quick for North.

"Come now, is time for bed!" North shouts, finally grabbing at Jack and tossing him onto the bed.

Toothiana and Sanderson, having been called in to aid in the capture of the small child, are just as hyper, making three problems instead of one. Tooth, while North's back is turned, lets out a girlish squeal, grabbing at something from a nearby bookshelf.

"Three Sleepy Snowflakes!" Tooth laughs, grabbing North by the arm, "I  _loved_  this book when I was little!"

Jack looks at her in interest before catching himself, putting on a look of disinterest that doesn't fool anyone. Sandy gets excited too, caught in the wave of Tooth's joy. North sighs and turns around.

"I will not be reading the stories, is time for  _bed_."

"But I'm  _really_  hyper!" Jack pipes up, launching himself from his bed. "And if you don't then I'll just keep getting up all night, and  _bugging you_!"

Oh god no.

Toothiana nods, smiling as she holds the book out to North. The Russian sighs and snatches the book, flopping down next to the bed with a grunt. He ignores how Jack quickly sits down next to him and buries into the coat, his yeti toy grasped tight to his chest.

"Alright, alright. Let us see. Ze Three Sleepy Snowflakes. Good god."

Jack grunts and elbows North, wanting the Russian to get on with it. North tries to ignore the weight to his left as Tooth and Sandy sit nearby with excitement.

North opens the book with a bored flourish, looking oddly at the floppy pieces of fabric that flop around inside.

"What ze hel-  _heck_  are zes?" He mutters, trying to keep it PG for Jack's sake.

"Puppets," Jack giggles, "You put your fingers in 'em!"

North does so with distaste, looking like he'd just drank sour milk. The puppets are mostly blue, but have small white pieces hanging off to look like the arms of a snowflake. Lord have mercy.

"Ohhhhhkay let's get zis over with." Another elbow to the side as he flips to the first page. "Three little snowflakes loved to play, they had fun in the sun all day. Then their mother came out and said, time for snowflakes to go to bed.  _Wow, this is garbage_. You actually  _like this_?"

Jack frowns, turning his big blue eyes on North. "Keep reading!" He whines, unnoticing of Tooth and Sandy watching them with adoration.

"Alright, alright. Three sleepy snowflakes started to bawl,  _mommy we're not tired at all_! Their mother smiled and said with mirth, fine, but first you must fall to Earth."

"Now you send them to Earth," Jack mumbles, curling up slightly on North's side. North groans, but does so, making the puppets tap the picture of the planet in the book.

"This is literature?" North murmurs, "A two year old could have written this... ugh. Okay. Three little snowflakes, now with a gust, said  _we can't sleep, we feel too rushed_. Their mother replied with a voice like the sun,  _ah but my snowflakes, the day is done_."

"Now make them go on the branch." Jack's voice is quiet and mumbley, thick with sleep. North can feel the child sink into his coat, the boy's head pillowed on his lap as North taps the puppets onto a picture of a branch.

"Ugh I don't like this book. Three little snowflakes with branches landed on, rubbed their eyes and started to yawn."

As if on que Jack lets out a squeaky yawn that ends in garbled speech, with North himself yawning as well, seeing how contagious yawning is.

"We can't sleep, we can't even try. But their mother sang a lullaby.  _Goodnight snowflakes, close your eyes, sleep in peace until you rise. And though when you sleep, we are apart, your mother loves you, will all her heart._ "

Jack's asleep, North can tell, but this book had suddenly gotten really intense really quickly. North can't help but feel a little guilty, thinking of Jack waiting for a family, for a  _mother_ , and getting stuck with North as a pawn instead. Tooth and Sandy watch him with concern, worry creasing their brows as North snaps the book shut.

Jack is jostled from his sleep as North hastily gets up, nearly bolting from the room.

"Goodnight, sleep tight!" North shouts as he makes a beeline for the door.

"But wait!" Jack murmurs watching him with sad eyes. "What about goodnight kisses?" Jack wouldn't bring it up unless he was half asleep, and that breaks North's heart all the more as Sandy and Tooth watch him with disappointment in their eyes as North denies Jack.

"Nyet, nyet, there will be no kissing or hugging... or kissing."

And with that, North's gone from the room, leaving them in darkness. Tooth flutters over to Jack with concern as the boy hastily gets into bed and rolls over, facing away from them.

"It's alright, Miss Tooth," Jack says sadly. "He's never gunna kiss me goodnight."

Tooth's heart shatters, but she knows that Jack is supposed to be a temporary guest, so she tries to not get attached to the cute little thing North had brought home.

"I still like him though," Jack mumbles, slipping back into sleep. "He's scary. But kinda nice... like Santa."

And with that Tooth sighs, pulling the blankets over the child with a broken heart.

***

North, outside the door, had heard the whole thing. He felt awful. Well and truly  _terrible_. He took a deep breath as he started down the hall, passing his family tree from mother Russia. With a start he notices something new. Added to the very bottom of the tree, drawn onto the wall underneath North's entry is a single line leading to a blue hooded stick figure with white hair. Messily written underneath is the name  _Jack_ , scrawled under to match the rest of the tree. It warms North's heart just looking at it.

"We got forty eight hours to the launch," An Australian voice pipes up from behind him. "And all systems are go."

"Uhhh about that..." North murmurs, still half staring at the new addition to the tree, "I was thinking that we should move the day of the heist."

" _Please_  tell me this isn't because of the brat's skating thing."

"Nyet, nyet, I just think it's weird to do it on a  _Saturday_ , a heist seems like more of a Tuesday thing, you know?"

" _North!_  You and I have been working on this for  _years_! It's everything we've ever dreamed of! It's the thing that's going to save us as villains, becoming the team that  _stole the moon_! It's going to get us into the history books until the end of time, but this  _kid_  is becoming a major distraction! He needs to go, and if you don't do something about it... then I will."

"Da. I understand."

North walks away from Bunnymund quietly, missing the Australian man's unimpressed, suspicious expression.

"Good." The grey haired man hisses.


	6. ABANDONMENT AND ABDUCTIONS AND ROCKETS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shit goes down...

**CHAPTER SIX: ABANDONMENT AND ABDUCTIONS AND ROCKETS**

"So, vhat, do I just hit this button?"

"Nooooo you gotta hit a whole buncha them, and use the toggle to make you move. You hit that button to hit stuff."

North stares more intently at the game controller in his massive hands, the plastic toy looking positively tiny. Jack hold his own controller up and points to the multiple buttons, prattling on about which button did what. It made North's head spin, but he would give it a shot.

With a giggle Jack begins a game, two characters popping up on a battle field in fighting positions on the television. North mashes buttons with no real thought to what exactly was going on, and watches with little surprise as Jack beats his character into the ground.

It happens thrice over before the doorbell goes off. North pauses the game, the one thing he already knew how to do before Jack's teachings, and gets up from the couch with a grunt. Jack lets out a whine as the game stops, but North just pats him on the head and asks him to wait a few seconds to scare whoever it was away.

Jack's laughter at that trails behind North as he heads into the main hallway. The door is ripped open, and North's blue eyes meet with a familiar pair of beady brown ones.

"Ah... Mr. Adler... vhat are you doing here?" North asks with confusion, half wondering how the mountain of a man had fit into a car, let alone why he would be calling on North. Even after Bunny's threat North hadn't even considered calling Adler yet, wanting to keep Jack for just a little longer. The boy had wormed into his heart, even if North refused to admit it out loud.

"I'm here for Jack," Adler grunts back, "I got a call that you wanted to return him."

Shock courses through North at that, he hadn't called...

A rough coughing sounds from behind North. The Russian whips around and locks eyes with Bunny, who glares at North and makes a  _get on with it_  motion with his hand.

North feels his heart sink.

"Da." He says softly, "I will get Jack ready."

Jack clings to North when he first sees Adler at the doorway. North snatches Jack's already packed suitcase from Bunnymund's hands, the fact that Bunny had it already making it obvious who exactly wanted Jack gone.

"Please, North!" Jack cries, tears refusing to fall but also very prominent in his eyes, "Tell him you wanna keep me!" The nine year old clings to North's leg even as the Russian brings Jack's suitcase outside and hands it to Adler.

"Jackson." Adler barks, " _Car. Now_."

North can feel Jack's full body shudder and has the strong urge to pluck the boy up, hug him tight, and never let him go. It was obvious that Jack hated the orphanage. But Jack still eventually lets go of North's leg when North makes no move to keep him there. With a small noise that may or may not be a sob Jack moves towards the car, but not before turning back to North once more.

"What did I do wrong?" Is all he asks, but Adler reaches over and borderline shoves the boy towards the car before North can have the chance to answer. Jack slams the car door shut and the noise sends North's stomach plummeting.

"What did I tell you?" Adler says, making his own way to the car. North's head snaps up as Adler continues. "He's a problem child. It's a wonder people even try with him anymore."

The Russian sees red as Adler lumbers into the car and begins to drive away. North watches the blue Sedan leave without blinking, staring after it as it look something that had grown to be very important away.

As it took  _Jack_  away.

North watches until the car is a blue speck, and then too far to see, and then he watches still. It's a full five minutes of watching the horizon before Bunnymund comes and gets him, clasping a hand on North's shoulder and leading him towards the house.

"I did it few yer own good." Is all Bunny says.

North says nothing.

***

Adler isn't happy. He was never happy when Jack got sent back. It wasn't usually Jack's fault, people just gravitated towards him because he was cute and then couldn't manage to handle the work that came with integrating an adopted child into their family. It wasn't their faults, and it wasn't Jack's.

But Adler never seemed to understand that.

"This is strike three, Jackson." The man says as he forces the orphanage's door open, shoving Jack inside so roughly that the nine year old lands hard onto the tiled floors.

"You know what that means, of course."

"The box of shame..." Jack mumbles, shaking slightly at the thought of getting locked away in the dark closet.

"That's right, looks like you do have a few brain cells in there. This is for your own good, failures like you,  _nuisances_  like you, they never learn unless the punishments are drastic. It's your fault you keep winding back up here, I'm trying to show you that. In you go."

Adler holds the door to the closet open with one meaty paw and curls the other into a fist that is held threateningly by his side. Jack's been smacked around enough to know what would happen if he were to disobey. Blue eyes swim in tears that Jack sheds freely. Crying didn't matter so long as you didn't make too much noise. With a shudder Jack steps into the empty closet, it being bare for this very purpose.

Jack wasn't the only one who got locked in the box of shame, but he was the one who hated it the most.

"I'll be back for you later." Adler hisses as he slams the door in Jack's face, plunging the boy into darkness. Jack knows that he'll be released before the skating tonight, but that's still at least eight hours away.

Jack can't see a thing, but he's paced the closet enough times to know how small it really was. He tries to breathe deeply through his panicked sobbing, but fails and begins to hyperventilate as claustrophobia sets in like a shawl. Jack gasps for breath and curls into himself on the floor, already praying for the light of day. He wanted out, he wanted to be free again...

He wanted North.

***

It was time. The moment that North and Bunny had been planning for years was about to unfold. The rocket was done to the best of their abilities, the Moon was in optimal position, and the shrink ray was set to go.

North steps forwards in his light blue space suit, painstakingly created by Sandy and his amazing sewing skills and turned from white to blue by a little boy's hoodie. The rocket was not the most beautiful of machines, in fact it looked ready to fall apart, but North's done with worse.

North trusted Bunnymund, and Bunny trusted the rocket.

Tooth guides him to the cockpit, North's suit being crazy heavy in Earth's gravity. Unknown to the Russian is that Tooth slips a small piece of paper into the pocket into his suit, the ticket to Jack's routine. North continues forwards without notice, but Tooth can tell that it's something he'll need to see. She'd been devastated when North and Aster had actually gone through with getting rid of Jack, and Sandy had been nearly inconsolable.

But North had been worse, even if he never showed it.

North thunks down into the seat facing the sky, as is the case in rockets, and begins the start up sequence with a couple of flicks and pushes at the control panel. Bunny's voice rings in his ear as he begins to count down.

"Launchin' in four, three, two... ONE!"

North's stomach gets left behind as the rocket takes off into the sky, launching at a breakneck pace towards the blue of open air. The neighborhood is quickly left behind as North breaks through the Earth's atmosphere at breakneck speeds.

What seems like hours, but is actually only a few minutes, later the rocket leaves the atmosphere completely. The machine shudders under North as the fuel containers break away, falling back to Earth without a care. This would be the point that most modern rockets began to use their secondary fuel to propel them, but North and Bunny had devised something a little different.

"Startin' the plasma now." Bunny chirps in North's ear. For the second time of the day North's pushed back into his seat as a secondary set of rockets start up, launching him forwards. At this speed, he'd be able to meet the mood in four hours, as opposed to the traditional one-ish day.

The ride is mostly simple, only one or two things in the cockpit beginning to float around in the zero gravity vacuum of space. North has a field day, laughing as he floats around without a care as the rocket steadily putters along towards their destination.

It takes three hours, fifty eight minutes to become locked in the Moon's gravitational field. North watches in wonder at the wide expanse of white below before opening the cockpit. Thankful for his suit, North snaps the straps that had been holding the shrink ray in place open, and takes the ray out. Without further ado, North aims and fires, engulfing the Moon in a bright green light. It takes a while, but eventually the Moon is shrunk to the size of a baseball.

Eyes alight, North reaches out and clasps it gently. It's powdery in his hand, small. Almost delicate.

North retreats back to the rocket, giddy as a school girl, but stops when something floats past his face.

A ticket, in the void of space, was a rather odd sight, but this one he had seen before. This was the ticket that had been stapled on his calendar on this very day. Tooth must have...

With a sigh North grabs the ticket that Jack had given him with the hand not holding the moon, and looks at it sadly. However, he sees something he hadn't before. North takes a second to run the numbers through his head.

"... I still have time." North whispers to himself before breaking into an elated shout. "I STILL HAVE TIME!"

The Russian double times it back to the rocket, all thoughts of the Moon fleeing his mind at the idea that he can still be back in time to see Jack's routine. Perhaps he could fix everything after all!

North guns the engines the entire way back to Earth, going quite a bit faster than the rocket could really deal with, but North was too elated to see how he lost the antenna that connected him to his team in the race back home.

North shaves half an hour off the original time, rocketing back into Earth's gravity without a single thought of his own safety.

_I still have time_.

***

Jack peered out into the crowd from the changing room of the ice rink, scanning the sea of proud parents for a familiar face. His face falls when he sees the seat he'd reserved for North barren, though his mind tells him he shouldn't have expected differently. It doesn't stop his heart from cracking a bit, though.

He hears the heavy footsteps of his coach behind him, but doesn't turn from his crowd watching.

"It's almost time, Jack." The man says, not unkindly.

"Just. Five more minutes?" Jack begs, "I'm still expecting someone!"

He's not. He's hoping for someone, and his coach knows it, but the man nods all the same.

"Five more minutes," He huffs, leaving the room. Jack barely acknowledges him, already staring back out into the crowd again. It's because of this distraction that he doesn't notice a second very tall, very dark villain enter the room two minutes, nor the subtle click of the door's lock behind them.

***

The atmosphere takes more of North's rocket than he thought it would, perhaps because he was gunning the engine for everything it had without a care to surviving impact with the Earth's surface. The city below rushes up to greet him as he skids along it's skyline, North roughly aiming towards the skating rink.

"There's town hall... LEFT!" He says to himself as his home speeds by him. The rocket was slowing down in minimal increments, but it was slowing down nonetheless.

The impact with the ground is rough, and North is sure as hell to feel it in the morning as pain laces up his spine and legs, even as the rocket tears up an entire street in it's fiery wake. Large parachutes help to slow the machine before it can slam into anything important, or even really harm anyone at all, which is a pity. Eventually the rocket comes to a clunking stop and begins to crumble under itself, but North is already hopping out from the cockpit.

The arena is only half a block away, and North  _sprints_  there.

He slams into the doors to the rink without a care, only stopping for a couple of seconds to open the door before taking off again into the building. He rushes into the audience area, the place that he had sat only a couple of weeks before, but his eyes go wide in shock at the sight before him.

The skating rink is barren, but from the trash littering the seats and the zamboni puttering around and erasing gouges in the ice caused by skates, it was obvious that the show was already done. North's gut plunges.

_He'd missed it_.

Any and all hope of getting Jack to forgive him was basically gone now, and North can't help but be a little broken hearted at that. With a broken sigh he thunks down the stairs, looking through the seats until he found the one Jack had saved for him.

When he finds it his heart just goes ahead and breaks in half.

Because taped to the back of the seat is a hand drawn picture, one North knows that Jack must have done himself, featuring a small blue wearing figure and a large red wearing one. The picture is captioned that the seat is "Saved for Jack's dad."

North picks the paper up gently, as if it were made of the finest spun glass, and stares at it through a film of tears. He won't cry, he's much to hardened for that, but his emotions are flip flopping all over the place.

But that's how he almost misses the black symbol stamped on the back.

North stares at the back of the page with fear, honest to god  _fear_ , as his hands clutch into fists around it. In black ink is a stylised horse, a  _nightmare_  haha-get-it, and three simple words.

_Bring the moon._

North's already out the door running before the paper can hit the ground.


	7. FEELINGS AND FREEFALL AND RESCUES

**CHAPTER SEVEN: FEELINGS AND FREEFALL AND RESCUES**

Bunnymund was beginning to regret getting North to send the brat away. Not because of his emotions or any form of guilt, no, but Sandy and Tooth had stopped talking to him three days ago and were giving him a generally hated feel. Honestly, what else did they expect to happen? A kid had no right being in their operation, the brat would kill himself one of these days and break North's ruddy too-big-heart.

North, still up in space, had lost their signal, but Bunny wasn't worried. The big lummox knew what to do.

Bunny is forced from his concentrated staring at the monitor before him by a rough coughing from behind. With a twirl of his desk chair he comes face to face with Tooth and Sandy, both of whom are glaring profusely.

"So yer talking to me again?" He asks, glaring right back.

"I dunno," Tooth says acidly, "Are you going to admit you were wrong?"

Hell naw!

"Hell naw."

"North wanted to keep him!"

"And North is too soft on kids. It was ruining  _everything_."

" _You_  ruined everything!" Tooth's voice raises to a shriek, and that sends Bunny shrinking into his chair. Tooth wasn't a shouter, so she was right  _pissed_  when it did happen. He stares at her with shock, but it's because of this that he can see something strange behind her.

The ship, once so small that Bunny could hold it with one hand, was now the size of a large car. The machine was much larger and constantly growing, meaning that the shrink ray's effects...

"Oh  _shite_."

Weren't permanent.

***

North's hand makes a satisfying  _smack_  as it slams against the polymer siding of Pitch's lair. With a growl North slams into the building again, rage fuelling him so much that he doesn't even register the pain. His kid was in there, and god knows what Pitch was doing.

"PITCH!" The Russian shouts, "Coward! When I get my hands on you, you are dead man! _"_

A harsh laugh comes from the speaker embedded in the wall, and a small screen pops from the wall. North looks at Pitch's face with anger, his face red and his teeth grinding together.

"Hello there North," Pitch laughs, obviously smug, "Why, I believe you have something that belongs to me."

North eyes his surroundings and brings the Moon out from his pocket. Pitch's face lights up when he lays eyes on the ball of dust, but instantly darkens again as a small voice chirps from behind him.

"North!" Jack shouts from off screen, "North this guy is  _crazy_  and-"

" _Zip it!_ " Pitch hisses, and Jack goes silent. North honest to god  _growls_ at that, and peers close to the camera.

"Listen to me,  _Pitch Black_ ," North's tone is acid and his face is stone, "When I get in there you are in for a  _world of hurt_. If Jack is so much as has a paper cut,  _I will skin you_."

Pitch shrinks a bit at that, but still puts on a brave face as he demands the moon.

A small chute pops out of the wall under the intercom on North's end, and with a small sigh North sends his dream down it. The Moon disappears with a small  _schoom_  noise, and Pitch's smile deepens.

"Now give me Jack." North hisses.

"You know, actually, I think I might just keep him. Get you to be  _my_  minion, how does that sound, hm? Jack and I have been having so much fun lately, haven't we?" Through the screen North sees Pitch turn off screen, where Jack's shouting starts again.

North, in his rage, punches the camera, leaving a lovely crack along the length of it. Pitch jumps at the noise, takes one look at North's enraged face, and decides to skedaddle, slamming a button on his control panel.

North can only watch as part of Pitch's house, obviously the one Pitch and Jack were currently in, takes off into the sky. With a shout he begins to chase it, pulling a grappling hook from his jacket and shooting haphazardly at the retreating ship.

It's pure luck that the hook actually hits the ship, but it hooks onto the end currently spitting _fire_  so that kind of sucks. North's slow as he reels himself towards the ship, just so that he doesn't end up crispy barbeque.

It's as he's flying through the sky, above the clouds, clinging with all his might to the smooth exterior of the ship with no plan whatsoever, that North thinks he's made a rather awful mistake.

***

"North's gunna kick your butt!" Jack shouts, slamming his foot into the wall of the cage for the umpteenth time. The cage was iron, closely resembling a fancy birdcage, and Jack wanted  _out_. He kept slamming his sneakered feet into the walls, the door, the floor, anything, to try and get something to break.

He'd so far been unsuccessful.

"Child, please." Pitch laughs, spinning around in his pilot's chair to face Jack. "It's not as if you matter that much to North anyways, he's probably given you up as a lost cause."

Jack's shoulders slump at that, the difference huge in his hoodie.

"I couldn't see why, though."

Jack's head snaps up at Pitch's comment, looking at the golden eyed man with suspicion.

"Really?" The child asks with suspicion.

"Really." The man shrugs, "You're obviously a smart boy, if you could worm your way into the Russian's house the way you did. Even if you were just a pawn to him, it's quite the accomplishment."

Jack shudders at the  _pawn_  statement, having his own fears outed like that hurt. Pitch continues anyways, unaware of Jack's reaction.

"I'd hate to have to send you back in a body bag, anyways."

Jack's eyes widen slightly, and though tears haven't made an appearance quite yet they're threatening to. He's only nine, he should not  _be_  in this kind of situation.

To drown out Pitch's rant Jack goes back to kicking at the walls of his cage and tries not to cry. Both parties on the ship remain unaware that the Moon, sitting pretty in a coffee mug, was steadily getting bigger.

***

North clung to the outside of the ship still, trying his damn hardest to get something under his feet with no luck. With a gasp he clings to the outside of the ship as his hands begin to slip.

"No no nonononono **NO**!" He shouts as his grip gives, the man plummeting to Earth.

It's with a great amount of shock that he, in fact, does not meet his sticky end via ground splattering, but instead only falls about five meters into the ship he had built with Bunnymund's help. He stares at the metal floors with shock before looking up and locking eyes with Tooth and Sandy. Turning he sees Bunny at the cockpit.

Shock floods from his system, and North takes control again.

"Pitch has Jack," He says, ignoring Tooth's fearful gasp. "We need to get into that ship."

Bunny nods before dropping his own verbal bomb.

"The shrink ray's effects wear off, mate." He says, piloting the ship closer to Pitch's, "That's why this clunker's big again. The bigger the object, the quicker it gets it's original size again."

...

"We need to get Jack out of that ship."

"Already on it mate."

Bunny pilots their ship closer, holding it steady. North grabs a hold of the controls for one of the weapons, which was basically a very large clamp on a rope, and fires. The claw hits the door of Pitch's ship smack in the center and digs it's claws in, the wire going taught between the two ships. Now it was a matter of getting from point A to point B. North can only watch as Pitch's ship begins to falter in it's course, and can't help but wonder what was going on in there.

Jack, still within the cockpit, knew exactly what was going on.

Because what was going on was potentially going to kill him.

Blue eyes watch the Moon grow too large for the mug, crushing it into dust before rolling off the table it was on, growing larger and larger.

"Uh, Pitch?" He says, watching the Moon roll past him and smack into the other wall, now the size of an exercise ball.

"What, brat?" Pitch asks, not looking from his view of the skies. Jack has no need to explain as the Moon rolls once again past him, this time large enough to set the balance off of the entire ship. Pitch whirls around and shouts in shock as the Moon crushes him into his seat, Jack wincing as he hears  _something_  crack.

Blue eyes widen in fear as the Moon works towards Jack, slamming roughly into his cage and knocking it from where it had been hanging from the ceiling. Jack and the cage both slam into the ground, and Jack just barely has time to roll out of the way as half of the cage is crushed and warped under the Moon's weight.

It's because of this crushing that Jack finds a hole he can slip his thin body through, and thus is able to gain his freedom. Blue sneakered feet inch around the Moon's random path, Jack having trouble staying upright as the floor shifted under him.

The door to his left is forced out and down, open, with a thunk and a hiss, and the wind rushes into the cockpit. Jack peers outside and sees North, on the wing of a great flying beast that look kind of like his car. A thick wire connects the two ships. Jack is forced to shift outside the main body of the ship to avoid the Moon once again, clinging to a hydraulic arm that connected the door he was standing on to Pitch's ship.

North holds his arms open and inches further out on the wing of his ship.

"Jack!" He calls, "You are going to have to jump!"

" _Are you crazy?!_ " Jack shrieks back, gazing down to the ground far below, and then clinging even harder to the arm.

"Jack, trust me, I will catch you!" North sounded desperate as Pitch's ship rocks with more and more force, the Moon growing larger inside and setting off the balance. The claw on the door begins to groan under the stress being placed on it, setting Jack even more on edge.

"You gave me up!" Is all Jack says, shaking his head and not moving from his relative safety.

"And it was the biggest mistake I have  _ever_  made, my boy. I will catch you, and I will never let you go again!"

Jack's eyes get wider at that, more trusting, because he  _wants_  that.  _So badly_. And he's willing to take the first jump to get there.

So he slowly begins to toe his way down the door, which was on a downwards angle, and prepares to jump. North keeps eye contact with him the whole time, even as Jack closes his eyes, shudders, and takes a deep breath.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Jack jumps.

But he doesn't get very far.

Because a dark hand reaches from the ship's interior and grabs his hoodie, yanking him backwards and into Pitch's chest. Jack lets out a high pitched shriek as Pitch wraps one arm around Jack and the other around the arm the boy had been clinging to. The boy struggles against the arm around his waist, but his feet don't come anywhere near the ground so really it's useless.

Pitch laughs, taunting North. The Russian looks ready to stab someone, and his face only darkens when Jack instinctively calls for him. Pitch begins to monologue, laughing about how he's won and yadda, yadda, but it's because of this that he misses a rather crucial detail.

And that detail's name would be the great-big-Moon-headed-right-for-him.

The satellite slams into Pitch's back, and the man lets out a pained shout, bringing his arms up to shield himself. This causes him to drop Jack as the ship shudders, causing the boy to fall right over the edge of the door.

North's heart stops as the boy falls past the door, but it restarts when the child grabs the wire connecting his ship to Pitch's with one hand. Jack wails for North as his other hand goes to grab the wire, connecting even as the claw groans more fiercely as time passes.

The man is already out onto the wire before his brain can think about it, hooking his arms and legs over it and crawling not unlike a sloth, just at a much rapider pace.

"Is alright, Jack!" He shouts the entire time, "Just hang on, I'm coming!"

Jack clings to the wire for dear life, unable to get a good grip without losing the one he currently has. North's halfway across the wire now, getting closer to his boy with each slide.

Jack's shaking, and his hands are slipping, and he's starting to lose control of his tears as the fear begins to overtake rational thought. The claw gives one final very-bad-noise before losing it's grip entirely with a blood curling  _snap_.

Jack screams as he begins to plunge to Earth, North not far behind. The Russian reaches out a hand in desperation, managing to grab the falling wire attached to his ship with one hand and the screaming boy with the other. He feels his arms and shoulders give protest at the jerking stop this causes, but none of that matters as Jack clings, safe but scared, to North. The boy buries his face into North's coat and sobs, fear and adrenaline coursing through him at a high. North sighs in relief as he shifts his grip on Jack to a stronger one.

"I've got you," He murmurs as Tooth and Sandy begin to pull them back up to the ship. "I've got you."

Jack just buries his face deeper into the junction where North's neck meets his shoulder and cries harder, scared out of his wits.

"I've got you."

It's only a couple seconds later that Pitch's ship launches itself upwards, quickly moving into deep space as the moon grows and grows. With one final, green, explosion, the moon returns to it's size in the sky. Jack clings to North's arm as it happens, the both of them still being pulled up, but watches in amazement all the same as the moon returns to it's proper home. North watches with apathy, knowing that Pitch was probably up there screaming for revenge.

***

Jack's re-adoption had been simple, actually, Adler still ready to constantly ditch Jack at the drop of a hat. North would be offended, but since it made the entire process easier for them, well... he would live. For now.

Jack's room had since been painted blue and the boy had completely moved in, even managing to get Bunny to warm up to him. The child sat in his rocket bed and giggled as North finished one of his stories from his homeland. North noticed how dark it had been getting with shock.

"Ah, is time for bed," He declares.

"Can I have a story?" Jack asks, hyper as ever.

"Da, da, of couse."

"Three Sleepy Snowflakes?!" The boy cheers, bouncing on his bed.

"Oh, no, I'm afraid that book met a fiery death my boy. We're reading a better book tonight."

Jack looks unimpressed, but smiles when North pulls out the book from behind his back.

"Look, look, is pop-up and everything," North chuckles, opening the front page and feeding his beard through the hole that he had cut. Jack laughs at that like it's the funniest thing in the world.

"And look who wrote it, why, is me!" North exclaims as he looks at the cover again. Jack smiles and settles next to North as the man sits, curling into his side as the child had before.

"Ah, so.  _One Big Yeti_ , written by the best evil genius around," North begins jokingly. Jack elbows him in the side, causing North to laugh, but begin nonetheless.

"One big yeti, strong and free, was as happy as he could be. Then one little snowflake came around, and turned his whole life upside down."

"That looks like me!" Jack laughs as he points at the rather sub-par illustration of a white haired boy with a blue hoodie in the book.

"Vhat, no, all relations to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental."

Jack looks unimpressed again, so North continues.

"He made the yeti laugh, and he made him cry... he should have  _never_  said goodbye. And now he knows he could never part, with that one little snowflake that changed his heart."

Jack's almost asleep again, propped up on North's side without any real conscious thought. The Russian man smiles down as Jack curls into him, putting the book down and carefully picking the child up. Placing Jack in his bed North makes to leave, but pauses at the door.

Without a second thought North returns to Jack's bedside, placing a very light kiss on the boy's brow. Jack sits up as he does so and throws his arms around North with reckless abandon.

"I love you," The child whispers in his ear, clinging to North like a lifeline, his yeti held in one hand.

"I love you too, my boy." North murmurs back, holding onto Jack just as tightly. Another goodnight kiss and Jack lays back down, out like a light.

North leaves the room with a smile and a soaring heart. Carefully closing the door, North makes his way deeper into the house he can finally call  _home_.

And then trips over that  _goddamn elf_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnnnnnd the end! Haha, this was a fun project, just for shits-and-gigs, but I had fun with it nonetheless!  
> But it comes with a bit of bad news, I’m afraid. The end of this marks the beginning of my two-to-three month hiatus. I’ve got work all summer (at a summer camp with no wifi) and then I’m starting college! There’s not going to be a lot of time for writing, unfortunately, and that sucks major dick for both parties trust me. Buuut once I get settled I’ll hopefully get the writing train back on track!   
> On a lighter note, thank you very much for reading, reviewing, and favoriting, your support is what makes it worth it, you guys.   
> So long, and thanks for all the fish! See you in September!

**Author's Note:**

> And there’s chapter one! I have no idea where this idea came from or why it started, but I did it and now it’s happening. LORD HELP ME. Thanks for reading, if you’ve gotten this far, and I’d love to hear any comments/concerns you might have! Thanks again!


End file.
